10-18 Percent of US Firms Hiring in Dec.; Fewer Laid Off in Nov.

It was hard not to feel a little yuletide cheer after seeing only a five-digit number representing national job losses for November. Yet, I almost shrugged off the latest national unemployment report as having no real influence on job growth, until I saw another report the same day from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

Culling data from 500 manufacturing firms and 500 service firms, SHRM released its Leading Indicators of National Employment (LINE) report, which makes predictions on nationwide hiring trends each month. For this December, the report said, responding companies said they would hire more people than they planned to lay off. In the manufacturing sector, a net total of 10.7 percent of companies surveyed said they would increase hiring, while in the services sector a net total of 18.8 percent said they would add new jobs.

After nearly two disheartening years of monthly reports showing more than 100,000 jobs lost (peaking at 741,000 in January 2009), the 11,000 jobs that the Bureau of Labor Statistics said had vanished last month almost–almost -felt like good news.

Of course, no loss of employment could ever be considered good in this economy, with one out of every 10 American workers sitting idle. The best we can do with the information right now would be to call it “encouraging.” – Randy Woods, NWjobs